


for home and future shores

by Issay



Category: Instinct (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Feel-good, Friendship, Future Fic, Implied Sexual Content, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Spies are paranoid assholes and we all know that, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 18:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15201305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issay/pseuds/Issay
Summary: Starts with that unbelievably tender kiss in 1x12 and goes on.Screenwriters seemed to be in a lot of hurry to make this ship happen so I'm trying to come up with something to keep it canonical but less nonsensical than what they did.





	for home and future shores

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Femonoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Femonoe/gifts).



> Dear, thank you for the past six years of afternoon coffees, squealing over ships, mourning beloved tv shows and keeping my troubled head above water. I'd be lost without you and you know it.

Lizzie isn’t good with words.

 

They’re tools, used to write up investigation reports or to coax truth out of witnesses and suspects. Her vocabulary is purpose-driven, her grammar used  to familiar and comfortable police talk. She realizes she’s not like Dylan who uses words like they’re weapons or caresses, who has mastered them and commands them with absent minded surety. So Lizzie has no words to describe the sheer panic pulsing through her veins when Julian’s fingers tremble on the skin of her cheek. Words and emotions do not mix in her life, not when she learned at a young age that feeling too much puts you in harm’s way and that talking about feelings makes you vulnerable. So when Julian starts to pull away, she has no words to stop him and she misses his touch the second it stops - which is why she follows and kisses him. This doesn’t require her to speak, this is easy.

_ (In truth, there is nothing easy about kissing Julian because his mouth devours her in small bursts; he kisses like the world is about to end or maybe to begin. No one has kissed like this before.) _

 

She takes him home. This is so unlike her, they never even went on a date, hell, they’ve seen each other precisely four times before: one included his gun pointed at her head, two were almost covert meetings in places off the beaten track and the fourth one was a friendly abush. She doesn’t even know his surname, or if he’s a dog man, or his favorite color. But Julian looks at her with this terrifying softness that makes Lizzie’s hands shake. The Lizzie from two years ago would have been horrified at how sudden this all feels but Lizzie from today has learned the hard way that happiness is fleeting. It can bleed through your fingers and sink into the ground despite your pleas and prayers. So Lizzie accepts whatever Julian is willing to give her, and pushes her fingers a little bit deeper into his skin when the door of her apartment closes.

There is no voice in her head asking what exactly she thinks she’s doing. Lizzie’s surprised, she expected it  _ (and she expected it to sound like Charlie even though she doesn’t really remember anymore the sound of his voice). _ But she doesn’t ponder, doesn’t hesitate, just sheds the soft material of her shirt and allows it to slump onto the ground. It’s an easy, familiar ritual of undressing, of learning each other, and Julian is so patient with her Lizzie wants to cry. There is no hurry, no heated tangle of limbs. He whispers words into her skin, some she knows, others sound exotic and unfamiliar. She cries out his name and not once wonders if it is his real one.

Hours later, when they finally rest on the tangled sheets and the skies above New York have long since went dark, Lizzie drifts in the comfortable fog of exhaustion and pleasure. There is no shock to the system, there is no paralyzing fear of the fact that this is the first man she’s been with since Charlie. Pressed from cheek to toes into warm skin smelling of cedar and spices, she feels safe and decides to relish it. Lizzie half-expects to be alone come morning. It’s alright. 

“You’re thinking too loudly,” he complains and kisses the top of her head. “Go to sleep, Lizzie.”

She allows herself to drift away.

 

He’s still there when she wakes up, pressing small kisses down the line of her spine, and she’s surprised at how happy it makes her. Julian is the kind of man who makes them both tea  _ (all while complaining about the assortment or rather lack of assortment; she has a sneaking suspicion that her kitchen cupboard will soon host a lot of tea boxes - she’s half right, Julian prefers his tea in tins) _ and scrambled eggs on toast, and who offers to take Gary out for a walk when she’s late for work. A man who doesn’t even so much as blink when Dylan barges in on their blissful morning.

“I’ll support whatever makes you happy,” her partner says later. Lizzie nods, grateful for the lack of judgement, for the fact that she has a person in her life who will take her side no matter what.

 

Julian’s scent has soaked into her pillows and she sleeps better.

 

“I need to talk to you,” Lizzie tells Andy a few days later, when she’s sure it wasn’t a fluke, a one night stand with a kiss goodbye. Julian keeps popping up, buying her fancy tea and holding her hand, and looking at her like she’s the best thing that happened to him. “In private.”

Andy’s eyebrows go up a bit but he gets someone to take his place behind the bar and leads her upstairs to a small office. She’s timed her visit perfectly, it’s late morning on a Sunday so there aren’t many patrons.

“What can I do for you, Lizzie?” he asks curiously when they sit in comfortable leather armchairs with cups of coffee. She bites her lip, unsure where to begin.

“I’m dating someone who shared Dylan’s previous occupation,” Lizzie says slowly and Andy smiles encouragingly. “Not a Company man any longer but in private sector.”

“And you want to know what the challenges of dating a spy are going to be,” he guesses and she nods, relieved. “Well, it’s good that you want to get into it with your eyes wide open. So the first thing you need to do is to answer yourself if you really want it. It’s better to let go of it now. The longer you’re dating a spy, the harder it will be to leave safely.”

“Safely?”

Andy sighs, a bit sadly and Lizzie’s suddenly worried.

“You’re a potential pressure point. Someone close, someone he will do a lot for. If your man has enemies, and everyone in that business has enemies, or another agency needs something from him, the easiest way to get to him is through you. And before you say anything, I know you can take care of yourself but dating a spy means dating a paranoid, controlling son of a bitch with no concept of personal space. I’m willing to bet you’d already find a tracker in your car, or tweaks to your security system. My advice: don’t freak out, just ask him if it’s his or if you should be worried.”

“Being under constant surveillance, then. Brilliant.”

Andy reaches into his desk and gets a small bottle of whiskey. He pours some into her coffee.

“Here, you’re gonna need this. And, you know, it’s not exactly surveillance. It’s his way to make sure he’s not worrying about you when he needs to be focused on other things. My wedding ring came with a tracking implant in my hip so appreciate a small car GPS bug.”

“Dear Lord.”

“Talk to Julian, set boundaries. Trust me, you want to control what’s happening but not fight it. That will not end well, especially with the intelligence gathering types.”

“How did you…”

“Oh, please,” Andy looks very satisfied with himself. “It’s pretty obvious. Moving on, there will be tough days. Most operatives are self-reliant, self-sufficient and self-centered assholes so it will come out eventually. Be above it. There will be days when he’ll come crawling to you because you’re the safe harbor. Dylan once said it’s like having a beacon calling you home from the dark and cold. You get to be that for someone. It’s pretty great.”

“Worth the tracking chip in your hip?” Lizzie asks with a teasing smile and he playfully swipes at her shoulder.

“You know it.”

 

Sometimes Lizzie likes to go to the Park and sit on the bench just to think during her lunch break. Late September air carries the crispness that clears her head and promises the soothing calm of October. Lizzie is such an autumn creature, with her hot cups of coffee and knit sweaters and boots that are perfect for walking on crispy leaves. 

She sits down on her favorite bench and forces her thoughts to slow down. Her head has been going wild recently, imagination fed over the short, sweet spring months and long, heated summer. Like Andy promised, there have been better and worse days, weeks without so much as a text exchanged between her and Julian. Two workaholics, married to their jobs, prone to forgetting about the mundane things such as food and phone calls to a loved one.

Lizzie’s mind stutters on the l-word. It’s a bit too soon. She’s been wondering recently if it’s even worth an effort, maybe she should have chosen someone with more steady lifestyle to balance out her insane schedule. But on the other hand, she’s sure someone boring, like an accountant or office manager would run away pretty quickly after seeing another pile of paperwork she brought home. 

Then, there were the good days, ones that made it worth it. Lazy evenings in bed, hurried kisses in the middle of the night, a small weekend getaway to a small town upstate where they stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast and everyone thought they were newlyweds. Lizzie thinks about getting shot  _ (again, Dylan really is a menace with a tendency to simply walk into dangerous situations and leaving her covering his stupid ass) _ and waking up to see Julian huddled in a plastic chair next to her bed, holding her hand with something akin to desperation on his face. About coming back home after a case going horribly wrong  _ (she will never forget faces of little girls they found in what they thought to be a warehouse with stolen car parts and turned out to be a part of a human trafficking operation) _ and seeing Julian in her kitchen, in a tidy apron she doesn’t remember owning. Having someone to hug at the end of a really long day. 

“Lizzie?” She looks up at smiles at Dylan.

“Yeah?”

“You looked deep in thought there,” he sits next to her and hands her a danish. “Andy wants to start volunteering at a legal practice that works with illegal immigrants.”

Lizzie blinks, takes a bite of the pastry and chews, on both information and the danish. She comes to a conclusion they’re both equally good.

“It will be hell on his schedule but if anyone is capable of pulling it off, it’s your husband,” Lizzie says honestly and then drops her own piece of news because that’s how they roll. “I want Julian to move in.”

Dylan sends her a brilliant smile and launches into a tirade about how domestic life lowers the risk of psychological disorders in cases of law enforcement officers, and Lizzie tunes him out with fondness. Instead, she angles her face towards the sun and thinks about future.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the lovely "Be By Our Side" by The Sweeplings.


End file.
